


The End Of The Line

by severity_softly



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 09:03:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15360993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severity_softly/pseuds/severity_softly
Summary: A few weeks after the Battle of DC, Steve gets a package from Bucky.





	The End Of The Line

**Author's Note:**

> Set post The Winter Soldier. This is a slightly altered version of a drabble I wrote for a prompt at my [Bucky rp blog](https://weaponizedembrace.tumblr.com/): a letter from my muse after they're gone. PLEASE READ THE TAGS BEFORE PROCEEDING. VERY TRIGGERING CONTENT BELOW.

The letter comes in a package that also contains a notebook; the outside of the folded letter says “READ THIS FIRST IN PRIVATE”, and Steve's stomach flips because he recognizes the handwriting. Even after all these years.

_Steve,_

_Did I call you Steve? Did I have some nickname for you? I feel like there is one on the tip of my tongue that never comes…_

_I know who you are now. I have fragments of who I used to be, just from digging into everything I can find about Captain America and his friend, Bucky. I also know you’re looking for me. Your people got close once, though I don’t think they knew it, and it won’t happen again._

_I’m not sure why I felt the need to send you a letter. Maybe it just feels like common decency for a man that was willing to let me kill him so he didn’t have to hurt me. Maybe it’s common decency so you don’t keep wasting your time and energy chasing down leads. I’m not sure why that matters to me, because there is nothing decent or common about me anymore. Maybe it’s just the glimpses I occasionally have in my mind that we were something. More than just friends._

_Maybe that’s all bullshit. I don’t trust anything anymore, most of all myself. But I know that you loved me. The guy I used to be._

_I’m not him anymore. The memories that do surface slip away again as fast as they come if I don’t write them down. The notebook in this package is about half full of them, along with clippings I’ve put together from various things. I won’t need any of it anymore, but maybe it will bring you whatever comfort it’s possible to bring. For me, every memory is a reminder of everything I’ve lost, and every day the idea that I’d rather die than have Hydra find me again gets louder in my mind._

_This is the end of the line, Steve. I’m getting off the train on my own terms. Try to be happy for the kid you used to know for that._

_Keep saving the world. It needs guys like you._

_Bucky_

All Steve can do is stare for a moment. He isn't sure when his breath went so ragged, or when his vision began to swim, or even how he's still on his own two feet. The room spins. Several aching heartbeats pass, and then--as if he predicted it--he collapses to the ground.

*~*~*

A few weeks later, another letter arrives for Steve with no return address, and Steve feels sick. Inside is a torn piece of notebook paper with a memory written on it in Bucky’s unmistakable handwriting. It recounts the first time they kissed, and the details are often fuzzy or wrong, but the overall series of events is something only Bucky and Steve could know. There’s no personal notes. The only other thing inside the envelope is a scrap of newspaper with a date from a week earlier: proof this was sent recently. The letters start arriving every few months after that without fail. They somehow manage to give Steve hope and break his heart at the same time.


End file.
